Read Online Book One of the Travelers by D.J. MacHale - Free Book Online Page A

and glass flew everywhere. The window. Did they just throw Marvin out his own window?
    Crawling was too slow. Jeffrey pulled himself up to a low crouch, clutching his burning left arm. The kitchen door was within reach. From there he’d run out the back. They wouldn’t gun him down in the street.
    Of course they wouldn’t. Not when they could put his lights out forever right here.
    Jeffrey fell forward, his chest thrust outward from the impact of the bullets in his back. He went down, his face smashing into the rubble strewn over the floor.
    He thought he could hear his breath, ragged and full of pain. It sounded like a roar in his ears, like the ocean. Or maybe that was the sound of his blood rushing out of him.
    Something landed near his face. A gun, still smoking.
    That was the last thing he ever saw.

O NE
    N ight, Gunny!”
    Vincent “Gunny” Van Dyke waved good-bye without turning around as he walked through the bustling kitchen of the Manhattan Tower Hotel. His bellman’s shift was over and he was looking forward to the weekend.
    The new kid he had just hired—“Dodger” was it?—opened the back door with a flourish and a little bow. “Evening, sir,” Dodger said with a grin.
    â€œGood night, my good man,” Gunny replied, sounding as high class as one of the big shots who often stayed at the hotel.
    Dodger gave Gunny a once-over. “You look swank,” he said with his thick Brooklyn accent. “Got plans?”
    â€œYou bet I do,” Gunny replied.
    Dodger snapped his fingers. “You’re off to hear your friend’s band up in Harlem!” Dodger clutched Gunny’s wide lapels as if he were a man begging for his life. “Please, you gotta take me with you.”
    â€œNo can do, Dodger,” Gunny said. “You’re on the night shift now.”
    Dodger mimed stabbing himself in the chest. “Cut out my heart, why don’tcha,” he moaned.
    Gunny laughed. He liked the squirt. He was rough around the edges maybe, but solid.
    â€œDon’t worry, Dodger,” Gunny promised. “Once you’re back on days, I’ll bring you up to Chubby Malloy’s Paradise to hear Jumpin’ Jed and the JiveMasters.”
    â€œWill you get me a girl, too?” Dodger asked eagerly.
    Gunny laughed again. “I’m not a miracle worker.”
    â€œCruel.” Dodger took a step backward and looked stricken. “So cruel.” Then he smirked and winked.
    The sun was dipping low, and the chill in the air made Gunny walk briskly to the subway. He put his nickel in the slot and hurried down the stairs for the long trip uptown to Harlem.
    Gunny peered out the window as the subway crawled out of the tunnel and rumbled along the elevated tracks. We go back a long ways, ol’ Jed and me .
    Jed was a bit older than Gunny and they had known each other since childhood in Virginia. After the Great War, they both moved up to New York. Now, almost twenty years later, Jumpin’ Jed was the leader of his own band at the nicest nightclub in Harlem—maybe all of New York City—and Gunny was bell captain at the Manhattan Tower Hotel. We’ve done well for ourselves , Gunny thought with satisfaction.
    Still, something nagged at him. Gunny didn’t crave the flash of Jumpin’ Jed’s life as an entertainer. But sometimes he wondered if there were something morehe should be doing, something just outside view that he was meant to discover.
    The clattering train pulled into Gunny’s stop with a screech. This neighborhood was a lot noisier than the fancy area around the hotel. Here pushcart peddlers shouted out to customers, men and women hurried home from work, children played stickball in the street while neighbors hung out windows and yelled down to them.
    When Gunny turned onto Jed’s block, the roar of construction sounds added to the din. He stopped to check out the new building going up. A